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NaNoWriMo

I interrupt this regularly scheduled post for a moment of fangirling. OMG NINE new TV spots for Deathly Hallows! Also, it comes out in exactly one month! I CAN'T WAIT! Ahem. Now let's return to our regularly scheduled post.

NaNoWriMo (or National Novel Writing Month) is a month-long event that takes place every year through November. Writers all across the country put aside anything they can, put pencil to paper (or fingers to keyboard) and write 50,000 words in 30 days.

Now that it's only two weeks away, a lot of people are already declaring whether or not they're going to do it, deciding on ideas, and finding places for kick-off events and write-ins locally.

Aliens Ruined My Life was actually my NaNo novel last year. I won, hitting the 50,000-word mark in 17 days. Let's just say that was probably the craziest 17 days of my life. For those of you who think you can hit 50,000 words in a snap, you can shoot for 100,000 or even more if you wish. I'm still deciding whether I want to go for 50k or 100k this year.

A lot of people start preparing for NaNo weeks ahead of time by creating character sketches, character bios, outlines, story bibles, etc, but I think of it as a good time to try out being a pantser and to just write like you've never written before.

Absolutely! I tried it for the first time last year, won and loved it. I basically pantsed it--I had a one page outline and went from there. This year I'm using it as an opportunity to experiment with a really thorough outline, though heaven only knows if I'll stick to it for long.

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